Getting away with murder

A recent study on crime shows
that sentences issued between 1994 and
1998 in 16 cases of murder included one
acquittal, four one-year prison
sentences, four sentences of less than
five years in prison, three jail
sentences of less than 10 years, and four
life sentences.
All the murders were officially
designated as 'honor crimes.'
The randomly chosen cases in which men
murdered their female relatives 'to
wash away the shame cast on the
family' are
listed in a study published recently by
the Joseph and Laure Moughaizel
Association. Of the 16 cases, seven took
place in the North, five in the Bekaa,
two in Beirut and one each in the south
and Mount Lebanon.
According to Internal Security Forces
statistics, there were 22 cases of
so-called 'honor crimes'
committed between 1995 and 1997. More
recent figures were not available.
Lawyer Seta Kerechekian believes that the
cancelation of a law in the Penal Code
could eventually change people's
mentality, if not by conviction, then by
fear of punishment.
Kerechekian, also a member of the
Lebanese Council to Resist Violence
against Women, said article 562 of the
Penal Code actually encouraged men to
commit such crimes.
The article stipulates that a 'man
who surprises his wife, daughter or
sister practicing adultery or illicit
intercourse and killed or harmed one of
the two partners without premeditation
shall receive a commuted sentence.'
It was only in February that the law was
amended to make a man's action
punishable. Before that, the law
acquitted a man for such an action.
A second section of the article, canceled
in February, stipulated that a man who
kills or harms a female relative if he
surprises her in a 'suspicious
situation' would receive a commuted
sentence.
'One would think that with the
second section canceled, men and women
would be punished equally in cases of
adultery,' said Kerechekian.
The Penal Code punishes a woman who
commits adultery with a prison sentence
of between three months and two years. A
man committing adultery has to be caught
in the act in his own home or be known by
others to be conducting an illicit affair
to be sentenced to prison for one month
to a year.
Kerechekian and other activists believe
the article should be canceled
altogether. 'Murder is murder.
People in tribal or traditional families
may not be deterred by a light sentence
and would be willing to face punishment
to clear the family's
reputation,' she said.
If the article were canceled, and the law
dealt with so-called honor killings as it
does other crimes, Kerechekian said that
people would be more inclined to think
twice if they risked being given the
death sentence.
A closer look at the ISF statistics
indicates that people do take advantage
of the law.
An ISF official at the statistics
department noted that many crimes that
are initially thought to be
'honor' crimes and are
registered as such in the police report
turn out to be otherwise after further
investigation.
ISF statistics show that at least eight
cases in a period of three years which
were claimed by family members to be
'honor' crimes turned out to be
crimes because of inheritance or personal
disputes.
'There's no such thing as an
honor crime in the penal code, but
there's justification for a crime if
the motive was 'honest','
the ISF official said.
Article 193 of the penal code stipulates
that 'if a judge finds out that the
motive (of a crime) was honest, he shall
be sentenced as follows: Life
imprisonment instead of execution,
imprisonment for life or for 15 years
instead of life imprisonment with hard
labor, temporary imprisonment instead of
temporary imprisonment with hard labor or
brief imprisonment instead of brief
imprisonment with hard labor.'
Article 192 defines a motive as 'the
cause that possessed the doer to carry
out the action or the final end he
seeks.' Article 193 also adds that a
judge can relieve a convict from posting
the sentence and verdict and making it
public Ð a requirement in many cases.
A 1983 addition to the article attempts
to justify the term 'honest' by
stipulating that the motive is considered
as such 'if it was characterized
with magnanimity and chivalry and
stripped of selfishness, personal
considerations and material
benefit.'
'The term 'honest' is so
relative that it would be up to the judge
to decide what is an honest action and
what isn't. I believe it's
unjust that a crime be judged based on a
judge's point of view,'
Kerechekian said.
So-called honesty, she continued, can be
found in the case of a brother who killed
his sister because he saw her having
coffee with a man. 'If you put 20
people in this room right now and ask
them what an honest motive is, each one
would have a different answer,'
Kerechekian said.
Another gap in the Penal Code that helps
men get away with 'crimes of
honor' is Article 252 which says
that 'a perpetrator of a crime shall
receive a commuted sentence if he carried
out the crime while in extreme anger
because of an unjust and dangerous act
committed by the victim.' The terms
'extreme anger' and
'unjust and dangerous' are
again relative and it would be up to the
judge to decide on the matter.
Laws in the Lebanese Penal Code are based
on the first Ottoman Penal Code of 1840.
In 1943, when Lebanon became independent,
a penal code was created based on French
laws. The 1810 French Penal Code on honor
crimes gave a husband a commuted sentence
if he surprised his wife in a
compromising situation in their own home.
This article, along with all punishments
concerning adultery, was canceled in
France in 1975.

Wiping away the 'shame'

The case of a Syrian woman who was
allegedly slaughtered by her brother in
Baalbek last month for eloping with a man
he did not approve of is still a popular
topic of conversation in the area.
'He had to do it. He had to wash
away the shame his sister caused the
family,' said Hamad Ismail, from the
village of Brital. Ismail employed the
victim, Aida Mohammed, and her husband
Hamid Touaymi. The couple worked in his
potato fields in the village of Taybeh.
It was in those potato fields that the
unfortunate Aida was found with her
throat slit. Her husband immediately
accused his brother-in-law of committing
the crime. The case is currently under
review by the authorities.
People from Brital and Taybeh who were
interviewed by The Daily Star shortly
after the murder talked about the
incident almost casually, and while they
condemned the act as barbaric and a
result of ignorance, they nonetheless
seemed to sympathize with the mentality
behind it.
'These people belong to tribes. To
them, a man is disgraced for the rest of
his life unless he erases the shame by
killing the woman who caused it,'
Ismail explained.
Ismail denied that he would do the same
if his sister, 'God forbid,'
were to bring similar 'shame'
to the family.
The two policemen at the rundown police
station in Taybeh looked on suspiciously
as a Daily Star reporter and photographer
attempted to discuss the murder of Aida.
'We cannot give any information
regarding this incident,' the
officer on duty said.